Klei, you're an Indie game studio who stands apart. A company with integrity and evident talent; who produce sterling quality games, both well-designed mechanically, and presented with admirable artistry. You've built a reputation of respect and good will with your community/player base; espousing a continued effort to listen to our well-intentioned concerns and requests, especially during this delicate process of refreshing old, familiar characters.
Characters whose identities you birthed during 'Strange New Powers' (and incidentally when Woodie was first brought into this world and delivered into our welcoming arms!) — back when Don't Starve was being shaped into the games that it has grown to become today. From that time on, we, the Don't Starve community players - DS & DST - have sampled, and played, and adopted these various actors on the world stage as our very own: chosen, and dearly beloved, in the years following their introduction. Bonds have been forged, and play styles crafted - each flavoured and facilitated by our favourite characters.
In this rework, the stakes are high. What phoenix arises from the ashes of the original character is likely to become their final form this Constant will ever know. Into the furnace of this fiery reforge enters Woodie. Our beloved Canadian lumberjack extraordinaire. Blessed, or cursed as some consider it, with a dark secret... most evidently on display every full moon. When an insatiable hunger rises in his bosom for the matchless material most prized by every world-maker - WOOD!
For players in this Don't Starve universe, no base can be built, no stage set, no ship sailed, without vastless quantities of this priceless substance. More valuable some could argue than all the gold, marble, moon rock, precious gems, and thulecite any world could offer. One thing is true, you'll surely be requiring much more of it than any other. It lies at the heart of most every floor, burns in the belly of most every fire, guards at every gate, and constitutes the stuff of most any structure you could place. It's foundational; fundamental to every base design, followed by other essentials such as cut stone, rope, and twigs.
Stemming from this realization, we see the core drive a player has commensurate to the ravenous hunger of Woodie's wereform - an endless appetite for resource gathering; collecting enough building material to fuel their design vision! Brought to light under thrall of each full moon, a return to roots so to speak, may this proposal stand:
Make Werebeaver FUN Again!
It's important we axe this question: 'Who is Woodie?' Identity matters; form should follow function. Woodie was born to be a resource gatherer like no other. A farmer of any crafting material a player has at their fingertips, literally and figuratively; with a specialty in collecting what matters most to any lumberjack - WOOD. Maxwell is Woodie's closest match to this role in the DS/DST cast/crew, but they complement each other more than compete in this regard: Maxwell is a gathering generalist whose shadow puppet minions harvest en masse, and at will, any material within reach, but outside of direct player control besides proximity, and regardless of its quality. In other words, Maxwell shines at gathering quantity, not quality.
Woodie, on the other axe/hand, is a true resource gathering specialist; focused on gathering quality with an efficiency no other character can (or should be able to) match. The player has the full control and benefit to be selective about which targets they harvest; whether only fully mature trees to maximize their harvest, or maybe only gold boulders and not other types nearby, and beyond, all while at an ACCELERATED RATE in comparison to any other character wielding a tool. This is primarily possible by means of Woodie's wereform, but also by the key to his transformation process - Woodie's magical cursed axe Lucy, or by being bathed in the light of a full moon, the source of the true power underlying this were-process.
Not only is wood up for grabs either. Combat brings many rewards of its own that are only possible to obtain through this channel. Thereby, let it be proposed that Woodie, through Lucy and especially his wereform, be equipped to thrive in this endeavour as well.
[Woodie Rework] A Return to Roots: Make Werebeaver FUN Again!
(Disclaimer: all proposed numbers are carefully considered estimates. They are subject to testing, and may require some adjustments/tweaking for balance purposes)
- Human Woodie: Remove log metre. So Human Woodie only has Hunger, Health, and Sanity Metres, as already established by the refresh.
- Human Woodie: Chop trees with Lucy. Lucy is an infinite axe with a Werefever metre (Beaver Fever, hehe). The longer Woodie chops, the higher the fever metre frenzy grows in Lucy (similar in nature to the Obsidian axe's charge level). Essentially she keeps track of the Werefever growing inside Woodie (and herself), and facilitates his transformation when he reaches max frenzy (Werefever metre reaches 100% and maxes out the level displayed overtop of Lucy). Woodie will then transform into his wereform, and drop Lucy to the ground as usual.
Lucy should be able to continously chop 100 fully mature trees (800 chops, 8 per tree, unless her efficiency at chopping is improved, such as was done for the Moon Glass and Obsidian axe) before maxing out the Werefever metre.
Lucy can also be used as a weapon with spear damage (34.0). Lucy should be capable of achieving about 6000 hp damage, being swung continuously, before she reaches max Werefever, so 6000/34 = 176.5 swings. So Lucy should be set for 175 continual swings/durability uses to reach max frenzy (somewhere in the range of 150-200 durability at least, 175 likely being ideal). If the player exceeds max Werefever (reaches 100% metre), they'll instantly transform into wereform and drop Lucy, as they would if they overchop.
The Werefever metre should only cool down during periods where she isn't being swung, and should be set to cool down in half a day's time (8 segments, 4 min) of continuous non-use (equipped or unequipped).
- Wereform Woodie: Woodie has only ONE wereform. This is Werebeaver by default, but with the allowance for alternate cosmetic alternatives (appearance and animations) as selected by the player. Weremoose can be the first, and perhaps only, alternate wereform available for selection by the player, similar to how the Willow refresh added Ashley as the cosmetic alternate to Bernie. Mechanically, there's only one 'Bernie' available to Willow. If the player chooses to craft Ashley instead, she is functionally (mechanics, numbers-wise, in every aspect other than appearance) identical to the default Bernie.
In the case of Werebeaver and Weremoose, obviously any combat moves such as the charge will require separate animations. Werebeaver can get down on all fours, bear its teeth, and charge ferociously. If you look it up on youtube you can find videos of beavers charging and attacking people that are threatening them. It's really scary cute because they surge at the person and while they do so their tail curls up in an a wave motion and then kinda crashes down flat/spoons out concave at the end of the charge/thrust. Check it out, it's adorable. Links are available on request. ;P
Obviously Weremoose already has its own charge animation. Weremoose can punch trees. Pigs can, so why not Weremoose. Punch that wood down.
However, again, regardless of appearance and custom animations, any wereform of Woodie is capable of all the same stuff as far as function/capabilities are concerned. No difference. This is essential. This can't be stressed enough: Different wereforms (such as Werebeaver and Weremoose) are simply reskins of the SAME wereform, and therefore all share the SAME properties. Each wereform, regardless of skin, shares the SAME properties and only varies in presentation (looks, animations, perhaps sounds, etc).
- Wereform Woodie: Woodie's wereform has only one metre: their Weremetre. All stats are functionally rolled up into this one Weremetre (Hunger, Health, and Sanity) while Woodie is in wereform. Therefore Woodie's Weremetre will be 200 units (matching human Woodie's Sanity stat), and Woodie will enter wereform at 150 out of 200 (matching his hunger and health stats). Should the player not take any action that would refill their Weremetre, the Weremetre should deplete at the rate of 150 to 0 in half a day (8 segments, 4 min from entry at 150, to exit at 0).
- Wereform Woodie: When the Weremetre reaches 0 (through Weremetre drain or combat hits), wereform Woodie will revert back to human Woodie in the same manner as in Don't Starve (singleplayer). In DS, while the screen fades out and then back in, and Woodie becomes human again, and gets back to his feet, the player is protected from taking any harm. So long as the transformation animation plays, the player is invulnerable. As soon as the player takes back control of their character and can move again, they are then capable of running away, and so will be vulnerable to taking damage as usual from that point on. This should allow a player to revert from wereform to human while being actively chased by or engaged in combat with either a crowd of mobs such as hounds, or any boss, and be able to run away and survive without taking damage from them, if they act without delay.
After reversion back to human form, Woodie's penalty will be to have his stats set to 37.5 hunger (half a day's worth), 50 health, and 50 sanity, as established by DS (singleplayer).
- Wereform Woodie: is capable, by TWO types of actions, of replenishing its Weremetre: EATing the appropriate material off the ground, or by GNAWing.
The appropriate edible material should include Living Logs = 50, Logs (and Grass Tufts, Saplings, etc.) = 10, Twigs = 5, Cones of all kinds (pine cones, twiggy tree cones, birchnuts, etc.) = 2.5, Grass = 1. With the exception of the introduction of eating cones, all these values are established by DS (singleplayer).
Gnawing (attack action in wereform) any mob or appropriate structure/prefab (harvestable by wereform) should increase the Weremetre by 1 per bite.
- Wereform Woodie: Stats. Hambat Damage (59.5 or 59.0). Logsuit Armour (80%). Road Base Speed (130%). Attack rate 0.5 (if normal being 0.75).
- Wereform Woodie: Combat. The damage received from any hits taken from enemy mobs are processed to the Weremetre the same as they would to health, with the appropriate armour rating (default being 80%, log suit value) applied. When the Weremetre reaches 0% through hits taken during combat, the character reverts to human. This is the same as if the player allowed the Weremetre drain rate to reach 0%.
Wereform includes two additional combat moves (besides gnawing): Charging (as already introduced, with a custom animation for Werebeaver added), and an Aoe Attack called Tail Slap for Werebeaver, and Antler Bash for Weremoose (being the same attack with a new custom animation required for both).
The charge should knockback enemies in accordance with their mass (so bees would be knocked back relatively far, but bosses are only knocked aside enough that the wereform will not be caught on or deflected from their straight line path by colliding with the boss; ie. as least and unnoticeable a distance as possible to achieve that goal). The charge should also briefly stun any mob that is effected by it. Gnaw attack damage (hambat default) should be applied to each mob impacted by the charge, and each mob struck during the charge should count as 1 gnaw (+1 Weremetre per target hit).
The aoe attack should make a cracking sound when performed. It will apply 200 damage to any target included in the circle (perhaps the size of abigail's radius) and result in a longer stun. In looks, think 0:27 of the Woodie Animated Short for reference (for Werebeaver's Tail Slap). The aoe attack move should cost 50 Weremetre to peform, as a limiting factor.
- Wereform Woodie's Sanity and Weather/Insulation Mechanics: Wereform Woodie's full Weremetre is 200, which corresponds directly to human Woodie's Sanity. So long as wereform Woodie's Weremetre remains above the normal threshold for insanity (15% or less), it's business as usual for Wereform in DS (singleplayer) fashion. Hoedown music as regular, and vision unimpaired by any insanity overlay. Above 15%, Woodie's wereform is impervious to weather effects such as freezing and overheating.
Immediately preceeding the Weremetre reaching 15% (perhaps at 17.5%), the frenzy fueling the wereform is waning. Weremetre levels have fallen low enough, and the wereform has become weak enough that Woodie begins to receive the warning aura for upcoming freezing or overheating if applicable (ie. in Winter or Summer). This is the warning for the player to be aware that they are approaching the insanity threshold (at 15%), at which point the wereform will begin to take damage to those effects.
When the Weremetre reaches and falls beneath 15%, the wereform becomes fragile as loss of wereform and reversion back to human (at 0%) approaches. This results in the normal sanity penalties to apply (any Shadow creatures present will attack, one Crawling Horror spawns at a time, etc.) The Hoedown music should degrade and become distorted, and vision become impaired by the insanity overlay as indicators. If freezing or overheating applies (ie. in Winter or Summer) then the preceeding warning aura becomes the full freezing/overheating damage auras and an additional drain rate to the Weremetre comes into effect as the player freezes or overheats and the freezing/overheating health loss is applied to the Weremetre. This will accelerate the return to stat-penaltied human Woodie should the player not be able to reverse the Weremetre decay in time. This will result in them being unprotected by any insulating clothing that was dropped during their transformation to wereform and vulnerable.
So the sanity mechanic should be identical to what happened to original DST Werebeaver as a result of sanity drain (but not at that sanity drain rate). Normal weremetre drain rate (whatever accomplishes 150 to 0 in 4 min) applies throughout, from 100% through to 0% of the Weremetre, plus whatever extra drain rate is added as a result of either freezing or overheating, if applicable (from 15% through to 0%). So at 10% to 0% Terrorbeaks will spawn, and up to two Crawling Horrors or Terrorbeaks will spawn at a time as before.
Wereform is waterproof and has 100% wetness/rain insulation.
- Wereform Woodie: should be able to swim in water (as hounds do), immersed with only its top showing. Base wereform speed (130%) applies. For werebeaver, its beaver feet should be visible in the water as it swims, whirring like cartoon propeller feet. Beavers are an aquatic animal and so are Moose (who are adept swimmers, and can hold their breath and dive up to six metres underwater to eat. Aquatic vegetation is a regular part of their diet). In fact the one helps create habitat for the other (beaver dams create bodies of water for moose to feed in).
If the Weremetre reaches 0 while in the water, the reversion back to human Woodie will result in instant drowning. There will be almost nothing to gnaw in the ocean besides the occasional harvestable (bull kelp for example) or edible to consume (such as the few pieces of wooden flotsam from randomly encountered shipwrecks). The player can combat at sea but cannot gnaw structures such as sea stacks, and therefore cannot regain Weremetre easily, and so is constrained by the time limits of the Weremetre with few means to extend it.
- Wereform Woodie: Full Moon = Instant transformation to wereform. An accelerated Weremetre drain rate, possibly similar in scale to the sanity drain rate for the original DST Werebeaver. Or perhaps it should take 1 or 2 min (2 or 4 segments) to drain from 150 to 0 without player intervention (so either 2x or 4x the normal Weremetre drain rate present at all other times). This should make it extra challenging to stay in wereform during a full moon. Dancing together under the pale moonlight of Deerclops Date Night should prove interesting...
- Human Woodie: Planting cones of any type should award +5 sanity to Woodie. A cone is a one time use item and is consumed during the planting process. This is a fair mechanic that allows beginner players and early game Woodies to recover from the stat penalty after losing wereform, and is of limited usefulness mid to late game, as it's a slow, tedious process that requires quite a bit of room. By that point there are much better, easier methods for sanity regeneration available to the player.
In comparison, let us consider Wormwood's sanity planting bonus. Here Wormwood can plant (+10 sanity), dig up (-5 sanity) grass tufts and saplings infinitely for a net gain of +5 sanity per cycle, at the cost of only one use lost from the durability of the shovel, and enough space to place one plantable in. Wormwood can easily do this ad nauseum to recover full sanity. At least when Woodie plants cones, the cone is consumed in return for the sanity boost. In consideration of the above, it's really not a big deal to keep this feature in. Please add this back to Woodie.
- Human Woodie: has an 150% chance of spawning Treeguards and Poison Birchnut Trees, as already established by the refresh.
- Wereform Woodie: no longer spawns Treeguards or Poison Birchnut Trees, as already established by the refresh.
- Wereform Woodie: set hotkey shortcut (Ctrl + Space) for automatically eating edibles off of the ground such as logs. In DS (singleplayer) this is Space (only, no modifier), which leads to frequent, frustrating, accidental acts of ingesting your harvest while stumping the tree you just gnawed. Ctrl + Space would prevent this from happening when you don't want it to, with the added benefit of being analogous to the already established Ctrl + F combat convention, and being just as useful as the original shortcut for being practical, quick, and easy to use, even when being pursued (ie. Terrorbeaks) or when in active combat.
- Wereform Woodie: In DS (singleplayer) you can remove stumps and plantables such as saplings with one gnaw. In DST this was changed to two gnaws. This makes sense with regard to preventing accidental digging up of non-renewable resources such as saplings or grass tufts, giving consideration to any other players who may be present, but does not make sense when it comes to stumps, which are unsightly, disappear over time anyway, waste an entire log if not dug up, and block the space for replanting. They should be made easy to remove immediately after gnawing the tree down, by making a stump require only one single bite to harvest. So please change stumping to one gnaw, and keep digging plantables set to two.
[Woodie Rework] Optional Proposals
- Totems: Instead of idols crafted from monster meat, allow Woodie to access a crafting menu while holding Lucy in his hand. This will allow him to carve wooden totems. These totems are intended to be more mid to late game perks for Woodie and thus will require living logs as the base material (in order to limit access to them early game as well as being thematically appropriate).
Consuming a totem will provide instant transformation to wereform (same as Full Moon) as well as a certain perks, depending on which totem type was used.
1. Goose Totem - 1 Living Log and 2 grass. Looks like a carved wooden goose decoy (from a Living Log) with a fountain of grass in place of tail feathers.
Perk would be to lower the wereform's attack and armour stats down to original DST Werebeaver (spear dmg and original armour value) but give the wereform a speed boost. Speed boosted wereform should be at least equal to overcharged WX (150%) but not more than 10% more (160%). 155% would likely be ideal. This would discourage the player to engage in combat, but would make it possible for them to defend themselves if necessary, but at a noticeable combat penalty.
2. Moose Totem - 1 Living Log and 2 Twigs. Head and body are carved from one piece (of Living Log) with a solid base to stand on. The 2 twigs constitute the moose totem's antlers.
Perk would be to raise the wereform's attack and armour stats to 68 dmg (Dark Sword) and 95% (Night Armour/Marble Suit) or 90% (Thulecite) while lowering the wereform's speed to 100%. Improvement to combat stats at the cost of speed. The AoE attack (Tail slap/Antler Bash) could also be augmented (damage-wise, aoe size, etc).
3. Beaver Totem - 1 Living Log and 2 Hounds Teeth (or Bone Shards). Head and body are carved from one piece (a Living Log). A beaver standing proudly upright, tail erect, with a solid base to stand on. The 2 Hounds Teeth (or Bone Shards) constitute the beaver's twin incisors (having the teeth gleam wickedly would be a nice touch, hehe).
Perk would be faster attack rate for faster harvesting of any applicable structure, such as trees or boulders, or mob. Damage, armour, and movement speed values would remain default.
- Monster Food: Since Woodie can enter a wereform, it makes sense that as both a werebeaver and a werecreature, that in addition to wood, the wereform could consume monster food in any form, be it raw monster meat, cooked monster meat, monster jerky, monster lasagna, monster tartare, and durian or extra smelly durian (or any other monster food possibility). Initial suggested values could be Raw monster meat and durian = 10, cooked monster meat and extra smelly durian = 12.5, monster jerky = 15, monster lasagna = 30, and monster tartare = 45.
Hopefully this proposal will prove to be fairly thorough and comprehensive. Should anything come up that has been missed in the original, it will be considered and potentially edited in at that time.
There are two points to add at this conclusion:
1. Let's view Woodie as a Jekyll/Hyde character with two viable states he can exist in, even long term. While human Woodie may be the main state, like Jekyll, taking the appropriate actions or experiencing the right events will trigger his transformation to Wereform. This werestate - Woodie's hidden Hyde - exists at an accelerated pace that, if the player makes enough effort, they should be able to maintain long term; if their surroundings support it, or if their combat skills are sufficient. This form should be accelerated in risk, AND reward. If the player can manage to maintain their wereform, Woodie should be able to harvest, combat (with the exception of combat-centric characters), and explore at a more efficient, accelerated rate in comparison to others, including his human self.
2. Let's hope this leads to seeing both human AND wereform Woodies running around for the entire duration of any group boss fight, and BOTH be welcome, beneficial contributors to such! Thank-you so much for considering (or even simply reading, lol) this proposal for Woodie's rework!
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